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The evolution of the discrete graphics card for PC gaming has been fascinating to watch over the years, with massive performance leaps and breakthroughs arriving at a steady clip. The ancient days of early 3D gaming have paved the way for realistic physics, lighting, animation, texture detail, ray-tracing, and so much more.

However, as GPUs have become more powerful, they've begun to require more sophisticated cooling - often with large fans and lots of fins, copper, and heat pipes.

On the high-end, the overall size of flagship GPUs like the GeForce GTX 980 through to the GeForce RTX 4090 (or the Radeon RX 7900XTX compared to an older Polaris-era card) has increased substantially to the point where mid-range GPUs are now a lot larger than what they used to be. And with that, GPU sag is a real problem - so having a GPU brace or bracket is a must if you plan on installing one in the traditional horizontal configuration.

Alan Wake 2 is shaping up to be one of the best-looking games of the year on a fully tricked-out PC, but it's also going to look beautiful on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles, says Remedy.

Remedy Entertainment's Communications Director, Thomas Puta, has taken to Twitter to discuss the performance of Alan Wake 2 on consoles. Puta said that the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions of Alan Wake 2 are "great" and that the PC version of the game is as "good as it can be", with the developer recommending NVIDIA's second-fastest GeForce RTX 4080 graphics card for 4K 60FPS with ray tracing and path tracing enabled.

Puta explained on Twitter: "Especially as a console player, I'm really happy how good Alan Wake 2 is on console platforms. We had a lot of focus on them throughout development ensuring the game would run well and look as incredible as it does. Focused on all platforms to be fair, as well as we could".

AMD's new Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7995WX processor is an absolute champion of silicon, offering up to a mighty impressive 96 cores and 192 threads of Zen 4-powered CPU power... so much power that it has more FP32 compute performance than the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 consoles.

That new flagship Ryzen Theadripper PRO 7995WX processor offers up to 12.16 TFLOPs of FP32 compute performance, whereas if we compare this to the Xbox Series X with its 12.1 TFLOPs and the PlayStation 5 with its 10.2 TFLOPs, we can see that the new TR PRO 7995WX is quite the beast. It's almost at the performance of the GeForce RTX 3060, too, which is the most popular GPU on the Steam Hardware Survey.

AMD recently launched its Ryzen Threadripper 7000 and Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7000 series CPUs, with a few big differences between the two: the Threadripper 7000 (non-PRO) is for HEDT users and enthusiasts, offering up to 64 cores and 128 threads. Meanwhile, the Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7000 scales up higher, with a 96-core, 192-thread Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7995WX processor.

Qualcomm's next-gen Snapdragon X has been teased before, but now we're getting the nitty gritty of the specs, the official name, and what this new SoC can really do, thanks to new leaks.

The new Qualcomm Snapdragon X SoC is the first step in a new family of chips that are built for Windows, and with it comes a new name: the Snapdragon X Elite SoC, Elite meaning it's, well, elite. Qualcomm is using new high-performance Oryon cores and a seriously beefed-up Adreno GPU.

Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X Elite SoC is built on TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) and its new 4nm process node, with 12 of Qualcomm's new Oryon CPU cores at up to 3.8GHz, while single- and dual-core boosts will see the Oryon CPU at up to 4.3GHz. Meanwhile, the updated Adreno GPU now packs 4.6 TFLOPs of FP32 compute performance, meaning it has greater GPU performance than the Xbox Series X... now we're talking.

The rumor mill is spinning up for NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 40 SUPER series of graphics cards, with some new information suggesting the RTX 4080 SUPER will have 20GB of VRAM on a wider memory bus, which should position the card smack bang in the middle of the performance of the RTX 4090 and the RTX 4080.

Benchlife is now reporting new information from their AIB sources, which points to NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER graphics card featuring 20GB of GDDR6X memory. The AIB partner didn't say it would definitely be the "RTX 4080 SUPER," but it could be another RTX 4080 with 20GB of VRAM. I think that would be graphics card naming suicide, especially after the "unlaunched" GeForce RTX 4080 12GB.

NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER would make sense, especially with 20GB of GDDR6X memory on a wider 320-bit memory bus, up against the RTX 4080 and its 16GB GDDR6X on a 256-bit memory bus. The flagship GeForce RTX 4090 has 24GB of GDDR6X on an even larger 384-bit memory bus.

Blizzard is really going for the edgy, dark marketing with its latest Diablo 4 marketing stunt: giving away a high-end gaming PC with "real human blood" inside. Yeah... real human blood running through the coolant inside, says Blizzard.

The new Seasons of Blood custom PC will be powered by an Intel Core i9-13900K processor, 64GB of DDR5 RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card, 3TB of Gen5 NVMe M.2 SSD storage, and the Quantum Vector GPU Waterblock for cooling. It all arrives in a signature DIablo red/black color palette with custom Season of Blood graphics, too. Inside of that, there's "human blood in the coolant," says Blizzard, so your new gaming PC would be... well... powered by human blood?

How does the sweepstakes work? Well, any gamer in the US over 18 can enter, where you'll need to donate blood at a blood center and submit the proof you have donated blood to the Diablo Blood Harvest Website. A regular blood donation is around 1 pint, so to hit the final goal, Blizzard needs just over 1300 donations of blood at 1 pint each.... not impossible.

If there's something I'm actually excited to when it comes to graphics in PC games over the next few months or so, the first would have to be Alan Wake 2 from Remedy, which has a bunch of the very latest NVIDIA RTX features... but then there's Half-Life 2 RTX that has my attention to. Check out the trailer:

If you haven't read into Half-Life 2 RTX, it's a modding project that was announced by NVIDIA and Orbifold Studios with RTX Remix. Orbifold Studios is a team of developers that worked on the likes of Half-Life 2: VR, Half-Life 2: Remade Assets, Project 17, as well as Raising the Bar: Redx.

But as of the last 24 hours or so, there are some great updates on Half-Life 2 RTX and what we can expect in terms of graphical updates over the original (and one of my top 5 games of all time) Half-Life 2. In a new video interview hosted by Lambda Generation on YouTube, who talked with "Kralich" who is working on Half-Life 2 RTX and had previously worked on Raising the Bar: Redux and Portal: Prelude RTX.

MaxSun has officially confirmed the price of its upcoming flagship GeForce RTX 4090 MegaGamer graphics card, the top-of-the-mountain version of the new MGG series the company launched earlier this year.

It is unfortunate that MaxSun doesn't have its graphics cards in more countries across the planet, as its GeForce RTX 4090 MegaGamer looks like an interesting RTX 4090 to enter the ring. It'll mostly be available to China and select Asian countries, while the rest of the world has to skip this one.

MaxSun has announced an official MSRP of $1999 on its new GeForce RTX 4090 MegaGamer, a $400 premium over teh reference price of the RTX 4090, which is $1599. MaxSun's new GeForce RTX 4090 MegaGamer is unique in the fact that it doesn't just have a couple of fans; there are FIVE cooling fans on this card. There's a pretty nice-looking two-piece aluminum body shell and a customizable RGB light bar. It does look cool, I'll give it that.

Microsoft's new early-access monetization method is apparently paying off, at least in the United States.

Although Starfield skipped Sony's market-leading PlayStation console and stayed exclusive to Xbox and PC, Bethesda's spacefaring RPG has performed exceptionally well. Starfield was the best-earning premium game in the United States for September 2023, analyst firm Circana has revealed, further highlighting the potentiality for Xbox's newly expanded business model.

The data combines sales of all forms of Starfield that were made in the U.S., including the base $69.99 game, the $99.99 deluxe edition, the $299 Constellation edition, and the $34.99 premium edition upgrade which included early access for Xbox Game Pass subscribers. Circana included both digital and physical retail sales of Starfield in their top 20 best-earning games for September 2023.

Last month it was reported that a bug in iOS 17 was causing an important location services permissions setting to change of its own accord, with users having no way of knowing that it had happened without manually checking themselves. Now, it seems that the upcoming iOS 17.1 update will fix the issue for those affected.

The bug in question is related to the Significant Locations feature. That feature allows iOS to keep tabs on frequently visited locations and then use that data to recommend things like apps, photo Memories, and even predict traffic routing requirements.

In some instances, iOS 17 was re-enabling the feature even if people had explicitly disabled it previously. That's a privacy problem because some people might not want their location to be tracked in such a way for a variety of reasons. Apple has now acknowledged that there is indeed an issue, saying that the bug appears to be related to the Apple Watch. In particular, it seems to be that the Significant Locations setting is being reset for some people when they transfer an Apple Watch to a new iPhone or pair one for the first time.

We might only have had the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro for a few weeks, but the attention is already starting to turn to what comes from the next round of iPhone updates. Those updates will most likely be the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro, with the silicon to be used in the former of particular interest.

That's because a new report suggests that Apple will use new A18 chips in the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus when they arrive in September of 2024. However, while the new models will reportedly get new chips, those chips won't be the best Apple can muster. That special silicon will instead be reserved for the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max.

This is all according to analyst Jeff Pu from Hong Kong-based investment firm Haitong International Securities. Pu was writing in a research note seen by MacRumors which explains that Apple will use A18-series chips across the board next year. Those chips will all be based on TSMC's next-generation 3nm manufacturing process, dubbed N3E. The current A17 Pro, used in the iPhone 16 Pro models, is based on N3B, the current 3nm process.

Apple's 10.9-inch iPad Air could be about to get an iPad Pro-like screen upgrade, according to a report by the industry-watchers over at DigiTimes. The report, first picked up by MacRumors, claims that Apple is getting ready to increase the size of the iPad Air's display to a whopping 12.9 inches.

The current iPad Air ships with a 10.9-inch display with only the iPad Pro sporting a display as big as 12.9 inches diagonally. If this report is accurate, that could be about to change. However, the report doesn't make it clear whether Apple is planning on replacing the current model with the larger one or if there will be a new two-size approach moving forward.

Citing industry sources, DigiTimes says that the 12.9-inch iPad Air won't use a miniLED display with Apple choosing instead to go with the more traditional LCD panel approach. That would reportedly mean Apple using the same technology as is currently employed in the iPad Air, albeit with larger measurements.

Apple has released a second Release Candidate version of the iOS 17.1 update for beta testers to put through its paces. But while the first release was made available for all iPhones compatible with iOS 17, this second iOS 17.1 RC release is aimed squarely at owners of the latest and greatest iPhones only.

That means that this RC update is only currently available for owners of the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max devices. Those who own older models are currently only able to download that initial RC that arrived last week.

With Apple expected to release the iOS 17.1 update to the public next week, this RC update is only likely to be in testing for a limited time period which could prove problematic if any new issues are discovered. Apple will no doubt hope that won't be the case.

Apple normally has something to announce towards the end of any given year, but that doesn't look set to be the case in 2023, according to various reports. That's after it was reported that Apple would launch new iPads as recently as last week.

That leak proved to be wide of the mark, with Apple choosing instead to simply announce a new $79 Apple Pencil. The lack of a new iPad in October is a disappointment for potential buyers, to be sure, while there had previously been plenty of noise suggesting that Apple would launch new M3-powered Macs, too. The 24-inch iMac in particular is overdue some love, but it now seems increasingly unlikely that will happen.

That's according to the normally well-connected supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and a series of reports he has made in recent weeks. With the October release window now almost gone, MacRumors has collected together a list of devices that are overdue an update as well as some that were only refreshed less than a year ago - like the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, for example.

Google has finally announced that it has added support for playing YouTube Music audio via a HomePod for the first time. Although judging by the way it made the announcement it's possible that it was hoping that nobody would actually notice.

It's a feature that many people probably already assumed existed, and if you're on that list we wouldn't blame you one jot. But it's now here - YouTube Music subscribers can finally listen to their songs using their Apple HomePod and HomePod mini smart speakers. The news was announced with little in the way of fanfare, with an unassuming Reddit post handling the announcement.

That announcement confirmed that YouTube Music support for the HomePod is now available for all Premium and Music Premium subscribers, no matter where they happen to be. This global launch means that the feature should now be live for those who want to use it.

Samsung formally announced its next-gen GDDR7 memory back in October 2022, so we're about a year away from the announcement now, with the South Korean giant hosting its annual Memory Tech Day in San Jose on October 20.

At the event, Samsung announced its next-gen Shinebolt HBM3E memory, which is destined for AI GPUs and HPC. But the company also provided some small but important updates on its new GDDR7 memory. Samsung said that it's not just improving the active power consumption of GDDR7 over GDDR6, but its new GDDR7 memory will use 50% less standby power than GDDR6 does, which is thanks to additional clock controls.

We already know that Samsung will have 16Gbit (2GB) modules of GDDR6 at up to 32Gbps of projected speed, which represents a 33% improvement in bandwidth per pin over GDDR6. This means on a 256-bit memory interface, we should see a hefty 1TB/sec of memory bandwidth... while on a much wider 512-bit memory interface, that bandwidth skyrockets to 2TB/sec of memory bandwidth.

AMD just announced its new Ryzen Threadripper PRO 7000 WX series CPUs alongside its new HEDT-destined Ryzen Threadripper 7000 series CPUs. The former offers up to a blistering 96 cores and 192 threads of Zen 4 processing power, while the HEDT-focused chip features up to 64 cores and 128 threads of Threadripping power.

Both of AMD's new Ryzen Threadripper 7000 series CPUs are compatible with the new TRX50 chipset. At the same time, AMD has the new WRX90 chipset for ridiculously high-end workstations and servers that want every single drip and drop of performance, features, PCIe lanes, and more that the more expensive CPU + motherboard combo offers.

But for the HEDT market, which is much stronger and more passionate -- with the money to spend on a HEDT workstation -- this new TRX50 chipset mixed with a super-fast new thread-heavy CPU from AMD, then the new GIGABYTE TRX50 AERO D motherboard will be a treat.

When Intel formally announced and launched the new Intel Core 14th Gen processors, with the flagship Intel Core i9 14900K leading the pack, one the significant features of the new 'Raptor Lake Refresh' lineup was a sizable boost to performance in games - with Intel citing "up to 23% gaming performance uplift compared to leading competitor processors."

How it manages this isn't simply due to the impressive out-of-the-box boost clock frequency of 6 GHz for the 14900K; some of it comes from the new Intel Application Optimization (APO) tech exclusive to the 14900K and 14700K. With Intel's hybrid architecture of P-cores (Performance or 'big') and E-cores (Efficient or 'small') maturing, this performance uplift technology works alongside the existing Intel Thread Director application thread scheduling.

At IEM Sydney 2023, we had the opportunity to sit down with Roger Chandler, Intel vice president and general manager, Enthusiast PC and Workstation​, Client Computing Group, to talk about the new APO tech, why it works for some games, and how the performance uplift works.

With the launch of Intel's 14th Gen 'Raptor Lake Refresh' CPUs, the overclocking potential for both the CPU's boost clock frequency and DDR5 memory has improved, and now it's possible to push the latter into the region of DDR5 10000. Throw in LN2, or liquid nitrogen, into the mix, and then that number climbs to over DDR5 11000.

Intel brought some live overclocking to SXSW Sydney, the location of this year's massive IEM Sydney Counter-Strike 2 global tournament. The OC experts of Team AU Overclocking (with the legend Hicookie himself) not only broke the world record for DDR5 memory frequency with 5809.2 MHz but managed to do so live on stage!

Intel's Dino Strkljevic let the crowd know there was a backup submission of the score in case things didn't go as planned on the day - but they did, and it was an incredible sight.

Team AU Overclocking and Intel put the new 14th Gen Core i9 14900K through the ringer at SXSW Sydney - showcasing the latest CPU generation's capabilities in pushing in-game performance to new heights. In a world where GPU grunt drives a lot of performance, it's a great reminder that the CPU still plays a significant role in getting the most frames. As Dino Strkljevic from Intel said, "You can never have enough frames."

Yes, a lot of liquid nitrogen was involved, with Roger Chandler, Intel vice president and general manager, Enthusiast PC and Workstation​, Client Computing Group, helping to keep a steady flow of LN2.

With IEM Sydney 2023 ((Intel Extreme Masters) taking place alongside SXSW Sydney, the game of choice was Counter-Strike 2. With the new Intel Core i9 14900K featuring a 6 GHz boost frequency out of the box, Team AU and Intel pushed that to 7.5 to 8 GHz. And with that, the performance shot up to a mind-blowing 1310 FPS.